Parks and Recreation System Master Plan Update (2016) parks_and_recreation_system_master_plan_update_oct | Page 26

B. Existing Park, Recreation, and Open Space
Resources and Facilities
Parks and Open Space
Louisville possesses a rich diversity of parks, recreation
and open space facilities and resources ranging from small
neighborhood and community parks to the historic Olmsted
parks, each with its own distinctive character, and the
extensive wooded knobs of the Jefferson Memorial Forest (See
Figure III.B.1: Existing Parks and Open Space). Louisville’s public
parks are primarily managed by the Louisville Metro Parks and
Recreation Department (LMPRD). The LMPRD system is
supplemented by a number of other park, open space and
recreational resources managed by a variety of other public
and private providers. The LMPRD maintains local parks and
facilities totaling 6,341 acres and an additional 6,825 acres of
regional parkland for a total of 13,166 acres. Most of this
parkland is owned by Louisville Metro Government. Some
properties with open space characteristics are also owned and
managed by other entities (e.g., Jefferson County Public
Schools (JCPS), Metropolitan Sewer District (MSD), Louisville
Metro Housing Authority, and Commonwealth of Kentucky,
etc.). A few of these are managed by the LMPRD.
Public parks maintained by the LMPRD span a wide
variety of facilities such as small neighborhood parks, active
recreational facilities, and larger community and region-serving
parks ranging up to hundreds or thousands of acres in size as
well as nine public golf courses. These parks offer a very broad
array of facilities including playgrounds, spray grounds,
basketball and tennis courts, baseball and softball fields, multi-
purpose fields that can be used for a number of field sports
(including soccer, football, hockey, rugby, lacrosse), cross-
country routes, trails (for hikers, mountain bikers and
equestrians), paved walking paths and shared use paths (for
pedestrians and cyclists), cyclo-cross course, swimming pools,
an alpine tower, high ropes course, zip-line, lakes and ponds for
fishing, sledding hills, picnic groves and shelters, a skate park, a
cricket pitch, dog run areas, disc golf courses, community
gardens, model airplane flying fields, lodges and other buildings
for rental or community meetings, as well as historic homes,
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III. CONTEXT AND COMMUNITY INVENTORY | October 2016 Update